The role of the Players and ArenaNet in end-game content

In this post I will discuss the community (you) and the player set META, how it is wrong for ArenaNet to follow the player META while still encouraging it, the viability of current end game content in regards to mistakes of the past, and my own personal solution to these and other problems. Current End-Game content is not viable.

The community, our loving community, we are more than just that though. We are a community of PvPers, WvWers, Casuals, Pioneers, and more. An idea travels much like a virus or a disease, and much like a virus or a disease, it is usually finding patient zero that leads us to the cure. An idea spreads from one person to the next, people develop their own opinions based on the nature of said ideas, it is easy to say that simply by hearing the words we are changed forever.

A lull in conversation leads to many places. A lull can be comfortable in a group of friends, awkward in a group of strangers, or an unfeeling lull. More times than not while playing Guild Wars 2, I talk about Guild Wars 2. What has the META become? Well it's very simple. Like this, "have you heard about heal boongade with power quickbrand?"

"I hear it's pretty good."

This statement can be parroted with each and every one of your personal touches, seasoned with your personality. But the META is the problem here. In fractals, strangers of all viable builds get together and work toward a common goal: Loot. Sometimes it can be too much to bear when a group fails, the mechanics are so old you just expect people to know them. They're dailies, not training groups. Fractals are by no means "unreachable." The community has developed tolerance towards to newer players who are willing to learn, and intolerance when they cannot succeed. Chrono has never been replaced in Raids, this is a META. It is more than just the META; it is a mechanic. I'm not talking about Chrono today. The Player set META is to skip mechanics. This was seen in early Guild Wars 2 days, with dungeons. As we all know, dungeons are only for tokens. I do not wish to see Guild Wars 2, or raids for that matter, die in my lifetime. The problem I see, is the Player set META.

It has never been META to do updrafts on Gorseval, but that doesn't make the mechanic irrelevant. Good groups don't do "greens" on Vale Guardian, which leads to my next point. Greens are optional because they can be ignored with a Druid's healing, but the META that (Not all people) Players follow only calls for one Druid, and if you can't solo 1 Druid, "you're not a good Druid." Top-tier raiders know that you don't need to follow the META to the breaking point, as long as you know your class and you know the mechanics, just like fractals, you should be able to succeed. "DPS Check" shouldn't be a community made mechanic. Top-tier Players know that they want an ever-evolving endgame; better, harder content. I compare the desire for being a top tier player to the God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals title when it first came out. Our top-tier players already have an option, however. Which brings forth 2 sets of upper, "elite," classes of players. Those that can do CM, and those that raid. A lot of training groups have popped up lately, showing Players the new raids, teaching them the mechanics, but still we do not win. Why? Skipping mechanics, speed running, the same things that killed dungeons. But I have to tell the community this: If this post is heard and things change, EXP means EXP, if you're not EXP, don't join.

Some raiders "don't do raids anymore," because of these things.

The way I see it, if Fractals are dailies, then Raids are weeklies. There's no point in holding yourself to such a high standard for something anybody can do. This is where ArenaNet comes in, to give us the next, big thing. The next "end-game," content for a game that will hopefully never lose it's shimmer, a game that will hopefully, never end.

ArenaNet: Do not scale down the Raid bosses. Leave the difficulty of 10 man raids, and it's accompanying Challenge Mote. But do this: Allow a secondary raid squad to the user interface; Allow 20-25 man raids.

Do you agree? Do you have a better option? Feel free to keep polite discussion, and constructive criticism constructive.

Comments

What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Sorry the title was clickbait. I meant to discuss the role of the players and ArenaNet in endgame content.

Quick note: meta is a prefix, not an acronym and therefore does not need to be in capitals. At least for me writing it in capitals makes it read as if you're shouting it each time, which makes your post appear angrier than you probably intended.

I'm also not sure what point you're trying to make here, other than you appear to be concerned that raids will get nerfed in some way and you're concerned this may be related to players attachment to specific builds and ways of doing things.

"You can run like a river, Till you end up in the sea,
And you run till night is black, And keep on going in your dreams,
And you know all the long while, It's the journey that you seek,
It's the miles of moving forward, With the wind beneath your wings."

English isnt my main language so sorry if im misunderstanding, but, u claim or at least assume that dungeons died and raids might die because of the existence of metas and in general them revolving around allowing players to bypass mechanics and speedrun content.

I personally disagree, the main factor that killed dungeons and might also kill the raid scene is actually the negligence from anet towards this content and the audience it retains.

Raids have been in a pretty bad state with the players w8ing upwards to 10+ months for a new wing which may i add rarely consist of more than 3 bosses (only example iirc being w4). Couple that with the inherent problem of replaybility in gw2 being driven purely out of enjoyment of the content and not much more and u have a game that barely puts out content while also ppl having less reasons to run said content than similar scenarios in other mmos.

This leads to the lack of a solid and relatively fast content cadence being particularly brutal on the ppl that want to find reasons to log in. Dungeons for exactly the same reason died, yes the nerfs to income created a bad rep but ppl were more than happy to jump ship considering at this point they were running the same content for 3 or 4 years.

In gw2 or any game as a service really, content lives and dies by its ability to be updated with more stuff of a similar nature to do, not necesarily metas.

Speaking of metas and the ability to skip mechanics and speed run. Outside of not going indepth about how their existence is hurting raids and has killed duneons u treat these as potential problens to which i again disagree.

On the mechanic skip portion, not only is this a good thing to have but ill go as far as to say its crucial for any type of demanding instanced pve to be sucessful. Most mmos, which have some kind of vertical progression either by lvls, gear or both do this by simply outgearing their content with gear drops, gw2 does it by simply not having the content scaled above what the current gear provides.

Imagine its been a year since w1 came out and u want to clear gorseval or vg but you would have to do the whole fight again with all its mechanics, imagine a wing boss down the line which makes these fights look like MO, with a buttload of mechanics and things to do, would u look forward a year later doing that every week?

I personally wouldnt, its importand for players both mentaly and performance wise to outgrow encounters because not doing so causes fatigue and burnout. Biggest example i can think of was during nighthold in wow legion, the kill times werent going down with gesr drops enough and that cause alot of ppl to get sick of the ebcounter after a month.

@Danikat.8537 said:
Quick note: meta is a prefix, not an acronym and therefore does not need to be in capitals. At least for me writing it in capitals makes it read as if you're shouting it each time, which makes your post appear angrier than you probably intended.

I'm not trying to make a point, I was trying to start a discussion. I am not concerned that raids will be nerfed, I am concerned that they are dungeons 2.0, except the people who want to do them can't because of obvious roadblocks. Gear is not one of these roadblocks, you can even use pre-HoT stats for raids. The point of this thread was to hear ideas on how raids can not only be more inclusive, but not sacrifice what it already has, which is the end game content after learning your class and knowing mechanics.

@zealex.9410 said:
English isnt my main language so sorry if im misunderstanding, but, u claim or at least assume that dungeons died and raids might die because of the existence of metas and in general them revolving around allowing players to bypass mechanics and speedrun content.

I personally disagree, the main factor that killed dungeons and might also kill the raid scene is actually the negligence from anet towards this content and the audience it retains.

Raids have been in a pretty bad state with the players w8ing upwards to 10+ months for a new wing which may i add rarely consist of more than 3 bosses (only example iirc being w4). Couple that with the inherent problem of replaybility in gw2 being driven purely out of enjoyment of the content and not much more and u have a game that barely puts out content while also ppl having less reasons to run said content than similar scenarios in other mmos.

This leads to the lack of a solid and relatively fast content cadence being particularly brutal on the ppl that want to find reasons to log in. Dungeons for exactly the same reason died, yes the nerfs to income created a bad rep but ppl were more than happy to jump ship considering at this point they were running the same content for 3 or 4 years.

In gw2 or any game as a service really, content lives and dies by its ability to be updated with more stuff of a similar nature to do, not necesarily metas.

Speaking of metas and the ability to skip mechanics and speed run. Outside of not going indepth about how their existence is hurting raids and has killed duneons u treat these as potential problens to which i again disagree.

On the mechanic skip portion, not only is this a good thing to have but ill go as far as to say its crucial for any type of demanding instanced pve to be sucessful. Most mmos, which have some kind of vertical progression either by lvls, gear or both do this by simply outgearing their content with gear drops, gw2 does it by simply not having the content scaled above what the current gear provides.

Imagine its been a year since w1 came out and u want to clear gorseval or vg but you would have to do the whole fight again with all its mechanics, imagine a wing boss down the line which makes these fights look like MO, with a buttload of mechanics and things to do, would u look forward a year later doing that every week?

I personally wouldnt, its importand for players both mentaly and performance wise to outgrow encounters because not doing so causes fatigue and burnout. Biggest example i can think of was during nighthold in wow legion, the kill times werent going down with gesr drops enough and that cause alot of ppl to get sick of the ebcounter after a month.

Edit: i was gonna continue but holy kitten this dragged on, sorry.

That was lengthy. There is still a whole market of Players from casuals to newbies who have never raided or don't know the mechanics and instead of teaching them the mechanics, people are teaching them, "how to press button in a certain order and dodge." What I mean by that is to go full overdrive on their dps, but without knowing the original mechanics, how the raid was originally supposed to be, the fail rate increases.

I'm not arguing the re-playability which is still a point to be made, I'm suggested adding a feature of 20-25 man raids which will make the clears even faster, but have less prestige. But allowing more people to experience the content without unnecessarily buffing the monsters will in turn, add new content. Maybe in the 20-25 man version of the same raid, there are different mechanics. It wouldn't be faceroll if produced correctly, it would just be more accessible for the wider audience and give people a reason to do (like they do Fractals) content.

The missing link is middle ground content that teaches players good habits that are used in harder raid bosses and cms. How to do damage, how to avoid incoming damage without defensive stats, how stacking on supports increases everyones effectiveness, and what tools your class has to solve the problems of an encounter.

Heres some examples.

Participation in open world metas and the rewards you receive is measured by either of the following

Damage output

Healing and boons provided

Break bar contribution

How many times you were hit by mechanics

After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

@zealex.9410 said:
English isnt my main language so sorry if im misunderstanding, but, u claim or at least assume that dungeons died and raids might die because of the existence of metas and in general them revolving around allowing players to bypass mechanics and speedrun content.

I personally disagree, the main factor that killed dungeons and might also kill the raid scene is actually the negligence from anet towards this content and the audience it retains.

Raids have been in a pretty bad state with the players w8ing upwards to 10+ months for a new wing which may i add rarely consist of more than 3 bosses (only example iirc being w4). Couple that with the inherent problem of replaybility in gw2 being driven purely out of enjoyment of the content and not much more and u have a game that barely puts out content while also ppl having less reasons to run said content than similar scenarios in other mmos.

This leads to the lack of a solid and relatively fast content cadence being particularly brutal on the ppl that want to find reasons to log in. Dungeons for exactly the same reason died, yes the nerfs to income created a bad rep but ppl were more than happy to jump ship considering at this point they were running the same content for 3 or 4 years.

In gw2 or any game as a service really, content lives and dies by its ability to be updated with more stuff of a similar nature to do, not necesarily metas.

Speaking of metas and the ability to skip mechanics and speed run. Outside of not going indepth about how their existence is hurting raids and has killed duneons u treat these as potential problens to which i again disagree.

On the mechanic skip portion, not only is this a good thing to have but ill go as far as to say its crucial for any type of demanding instanced pve to be sucessful. Most mmos, which have some kind of vertical progression either by lvls, gear or both do this by simply outgearing their content with gear drops, gw2 does it by simply not having the content scaled above what the current gear provides.

Imagine its been a year since w1 came out and u want to clear gorseval or vg but you would have to do the whole fight again with all its mechanics, imagine a wing boss down the line which makes these fights look like MO, with a buttload of mechanics and things to do, would u look forward a year later doing that every week?

I personally wouldnt, its importand for players both mentaly and performance wise to outgrow encounters because not doing so causes fatigue and burnout. Biggest example i can think of was during nighthold in wow legion, the kill times werent going down with gesr drops enough and that cause alot of ppl to get sick of the ebcounter after a month.

Edit: i was gonna continue but holy kitten this dragged on, sorry.

That was lengthy. There is still a whole market of Players from casuals to newbies who have never raided or don't know the mechanics and instead of teaching them the mechanics, people are teaching them, "how to press button in a certain order and dodge." What I mean by that is to go full overdrive on their dps, but without knowing the original mechanics, how the raid was originally supposed to be, the fail rate increases.

I'm not arguing the re-playability which is still a point to be made, I'm suggested adding a feature of 20-25 man raids which will make the clears even faster, but have less prestige. But allowing more people to experience the content without unnecessarily buffing the monsters will in turn, add new content. Maybe in the 20-25 man version of the same raid, there are different mechanics. It wouldn't be faceroll if produced correctly, it would just be more accessible for the wider audience and give people a reason to do (like they do Fractals) content.

They dont need to learn how a raid was originally supposed to be run, maybe they need to hear about it in case their first attempt isnt good ebough but generally training guilds and streamers just teach them the current tactics. And no ignoring blues on vg and updrafts on gorseval doesnt mean u are a vet or u are doing a speedkill, speed kills revolve around more than just the strat.

Im bringing up repayability because it correlates directly with their current state and the state of dungeons. While i think 25 man raids would be a somewhat viable option for an easy mode i think it wouldnt solve the "problem" that ppl have with raids, namely "i have 4 friends but i cant find 5 more"

Personally for me the best way to handle raids, please the ppl that enjoy that type of content and possibly prevent it fron dying would be to start handling raids as paid content or raid cms at least.

@zealex.9410 said:
English isnt my main language so sorry if im misunderstanding, but, u claim or at least assume that dungeons died and raids might die because of the existence of metas and in general them revolving around allowing players to bypass mechanics and speedrun content.

I personally disagree, the main factor that killed dungeons and might also kill the raid scene is actually the negligence from anet towards this content and the audience it retains.

Raids have been in a pretty bad state with the players w8ing upwards to 10+ months for a new wing which may i add rarely consist of more than 3 bosses (only example iirc being w4). Couple that with the inherent problem of replaybility in gw2 being driven purely out of enjoyment of the content and not much more and u have a game that barely puts out content while also ppl having less reasons to run said content than similar scenarios in other mmos.

This leads to the lack of a solid and relatively fast content cadence being particularly brutal on the ppl that want to find reasons to log in. Dungeons for exactly the same reason died, yes the nerfs to income created a bad rep but ppl were more than happy to jump ship considering at this point they were running the same content for 3 or 4 years.

In gw2 or any game as a service really, content lives and dies by its ability to be updated with more stuff of a similar nature to do, not necesarily metas.

Speaking of metas and the ability to skip mechanics and speed run. Outside of not going indepth about how their existence is hurting raids and has killed duneons u treat these as potential problens to which i again disagree.

On the mechanic skip portion, not only is this a good thing to have but ill go as far as to say its crucial for any type of demanding instanced pve to be sucessful. Most mmos, which have some kind of vertical progression either by lvls, gear or both do this by simply outgearing their content with gear drops, gw2 does it by simply not having the content scaled above what the current gear provides.

Imagine its been a year since w1 came out and u want to clear gorseval or vg but you would have to do the whole fight again with all its mechanics, imagine a wing boss down the line which makes these fights look like MO, with a buttload of mechanics and things to do, would u look forward a year later doing that every week?

I personally wouldnt, its importand for players both mentaly and performance wise to outgrow encounters because not doing so causes fatigue and burnout. Biggest example i can think of was during nighthold in wow legion, the kill times werent going down with gesr drops enough and that cause alot of ppl to get sick of the ebcounter after a month.

Edit: i was gonna continue but holy kitten this dragged on, sorry.

That was lengthy. There is still a whole market of Players from casuals to newbies who have never raided or don't know the mechanics and instead of teaching them the mechanics, people are teaching them, "how to press button in a certain order and dodge." What I mean by that is to go full overdrive on their dps, but without knowing the original mechanics, how the raid was originally supposed to be, the fail rate increases.

I'm not arguing the re-playability which is still a point to be made, I'm suggested adding a feature of 20-25 man raids which will make the clears even faster, but have less prestige. But allowing more people to experience the content without unnecessarily buffing the monsters will in turn, add new content. Maybe in the 20-25 man version of the same raid, there are different mechanics. It wouldn't be faceroll if produced correctly, it would just be more accessible for the wider audience and give people a reason to do (like they do Fractals) content.

They dont need to learn how a raid was originally supposed to be run, maybe they need to hear about it in case their first attempt isnt good ebough but generally training guilds and streamers just teach them the current tactics. And no ignoring blues on vg and updrafts on gorseval doesnt mean u are a vet or u are doing a speedkill, speed kills revolve around more than just the strat.

Im bringing up repayability because it correlates directly with their current state and the state of dungeons. While i think 25 man raids would be a somewhat viable option for an easy mode i think it wouldnt solve the "problem" that ppl have with raids, namely "i have 4 friends but i cant find 5 more"

Personally for me the best way to handle raids, please the ppl that enjoy that type of content and possibly prevent it fron dying would be to start handling raids as paid content or raid cms at least.

Take fractals for instance, sure a mesmer can port up to skip the mechanic, but shouldn't you know that mechanic if you don't have a mesmer? Streamers don't count in this discussion unless they post here because they are a public figure or have a public opinion. If someone skips greens on VG all the time, then enters the newest fractal, (Sirens Reef) how else would they know to stand in the green circle. Or if it were the other way around where they do fractals first, then encounter VG, they know the mechanic. If the group needs it, they should know it.

"Easy mode" is not what I had in mind. What I had in mind is much like the dungeon mechanic of different paths. 10 man is path A, 20 man is path B, 25 man is path C. They all have different mechanics when in reality it's all the same dungeon, or in this case, raid.

Paid content...?

@Shikaru.7618 said: After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

@zealex.9410 said:
English isnt my main language so sorry if im misunderstanding, but, u claim or at least assume that dungeons died and raids might die because of the existence of metas and in general them revolving around allowing players to bypass mechanics and speedrun content.

I personally disagree, the main factor that killed dungeons and might also kill the raid scene is actually the negligence from anet towards this content and the audience it retains.

Raids have been in a pretty bad state with the players w8ing upwards to 10+ months for a new wing which may i add rarely consist of more than 3 bosses (only example iirc being w4). Couple that with the inherent problem of replaybility in gw2 being driven purely out of enjoyment of the content and not much more and u have a game that barely puts out content while also ppl having less reasons to run said content than similar scenarios in other mmos.

This leads to the lack of a solid and relatively fast content cadence being particularly brutal on the ppl that want to find reasons to log in. Dungeons for exactly the same reason died, yes the nerfs to income created a bad rep but ppl were more than happy to jump ship considering at this point they were running the same content for 3 or 4 years.

In gw2 or any game as a service really, content lives and dies by its ability to be updated with more stuff of a similar nature to do, not necesarily metas.

Speaking of metas and the ability to skip mechanics and speed run. Outside of not going indepth about how their existence is hurting raids and has killed duneons u treat these as potential problens to which i again disagree.

On the mechanic skip portion, not only is this a good thing to have but ill go as far as to say its crucial for any type of demanding instanced pve to be sucessful. Most mmos, which have some kind of vertical progression either by lvls, gear or both do this by simply outgearing their content with gear drops, gw2 does it by simply not having the content scaled above what the current gear provides.

Imagine its been a year since w1 came out and u want to clear gorseval or vg but you would have to do the whole fight again with all its mechanics, imagine a wing boss down the line which makes these fights look like MO, with a buttload of mechanics and things to do, would u look forward a year later doing that every week?

I personally wouldnt, its importand for players both mentaly and performance wise to outgrow encounters because not doing so causes fatigue and burnout. Biggest example i can think of was during nighthold in wow legion, the kill times werent going down with gesr drops enough and that cause alot of ppl to get sick of the ebcounter after a month.

Edit: i was gonna continue but holy kitten this dragged on, sorry.

That was lengthy. There is still a whole market of Players from casuals to newbies who have never raided or don't know the mechanics and instead of teaching them the mechanics, people are teaching them, "how to press button in a certain order and dodge." What I mean by that is to go full overdrive on their dps, but without knowing the original mechanics, how the raid was originally supposed to be, the fail rate increases.

I'm not arguing the re-playability which is still a point to be made, I'm suggested adding a feature of 20-25 man raids which will make the clears even faster, but have less prestige. But allowing more people to experience the content without unnecessarily buffing the monsters will in turn, add new content. Maybe in the 20-25 man version of the same raid, there are different mechanics. It wouldn't be faceroll if produced correctly, it would just be more accessible for the wider audience and give people a reason to do (like they do Fractals) content.

They dont need to learn how a raid was originally supposed to be run, maybe they need to hear about it in case their first attempt isnt good ebough but generally training guilds and streamers just teach them the current tactics. And no ignoring blues on vg and updrafts on gorseval doesnt mean u are a vet or u are doing a speedkill, speed kills revolve around more than just the strat.

Im bringing up repayability because it correlates directly with their current state and the state of dungeons. While i think 25 man raids would be a somewhat viable option for an easy mode i think it wouldnt solve the "problem" that ppl have with raids, namely "i have 4 friends but i cant find 5 more"

Personally for me the best way to handle raids, please the ppl that enjoy that type of content and possibly prevent it fron dying would be to start handling raids as paid content or raid cms at least.

Take fractals for instance, sure a mesmer can port up to skip the mechanic, but shouldn't you know that mechanic if you don't have a mesmer? Streamers don't count in this discussion unless they post here because they are a public figure or have a public opinion. If someone skips greens on VG all the time, then enters the newest fractal, (Sirens Reef) how else would they know to stand in the green circle. Or if it were the other way around where they do fractals first, then encounter VG, they know the mechanic. If the group needs it, they should know it.

"Easy mode" is not what I had in mind. What I had in mind is much like the dungeon mechanic of different paths. 10 man is path A, 20 man is path B, 25 man is path C. They all have different mechanics when in reality it's all the same dungeon, or in this case, raid.

Paid content...?

After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

This was an excellent point.

Fractals and raids are from the ground up diff pieces of content so compairing then does little in this case. For one, fractals have multiple tiers were even if someone joins early when ppl still dont know kitten or join late where ppl learned all the kitten they can do it on lower tiers, get acustomed and go higher.

Meanwhile in raids joining early allows you to get alot of experience at the same time as everyone else which is valueable. On the other hand joinning into raids later is also smooth because there are content creators, and raid training communities ready to teach you all you need to know.

Also lets be completely honest how often do you not have a chrono or some other class in your group? On top of that most mechanics if not all are at least explained by the training groups on what they do but then the trainers proceed to tell the group that these mechanics are skipped.

Even if they are how complex are these mechanics, 4 or w/e ppl need to stand on green instead of a healer outhealing it or kill these mobs to open the path instead of portal.

Btw, the green mechanic exists in fractal 100 and the green from syren's reef is noticably different from the green mechanic in vg.

@Shikaru.7618 said:
The missing link is middle ground content that teaches players good habits that are used in harder raid bosses and cms. How to do damage, how to avoid incoming damage without defensive stats, how stacking on supports increases everyones effectiveness, and what tools your class has to solve the problems of an encounter.

Heres some examples.

Participation in open world metas and the rewards you receive is measured by either of the following

Damage output

Healing and boons provided

Break bar contribution

How many times you were hit by mechanics

After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

I dont think ow would ever be a good place for that simply because ow isnt balance with cordination in mind. Plus, i think to some extend fractals already serve that purpose.

The 1 thing that's constant or meta for most encounters to win or success is the damage mechanic. Everything in between (boons etc) is towards that goal. There's alot of builds, tools, classes etc to achieve that. Lots of combination that can be used which I agree, but there are also underperforming and over performing combinations depending on scenario. As for balancing, there won't be perfect balance. Wanting variety (wanting for difference) but perfect balance (to be the same) contradicts. An encounter that can be done without involving health bar and damage mechanic or everyone is transformed into identical characters for balance?

@Shikaru.7618 said:
The missing link is middle ground content that teaches players good habits that are used in harder raid bosses and cms. How to do damage, how to avoid incoming damage without defensive stats, how stacking on supports increases everyones effectiveness, and what tools your class has to solve the problems of an encounter.

Heres some examples.

Participation in open world metas and the rewards you receive is measured by either of the following

Damage output

Healing and boons provided

Break bar contribution

How many times you were hit by mechanics

After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

I dont think ow would ever be a good place for that simply because ow isnt balance with cordination in mind. Plus, i think to some extend fractals already serve that purpose.

The number balance isnt the highlight here, more so the idea of putting the stats in front of players post meta event so it draws their attention to it. You would also be measured against only 1 of the categories in this hypothetical and the bar for success would be low enough to equate to the current difficulty of open world.

@Shikaru.7618 said:
The missing link is middle ground content that teaches players good habits that are used in harder raid bosses and cms. How to do damage, how to avoid incoming damage without defensive stats, how stacking on supports increases everyones effectiveness, and what tools your class has to solve the problems of an encounter.

Heres some examples.

Participation in open world metas and the rewards you receive is measured by either of the following

Damage output

Healing and boons provided

Break bar contribution

How many times you were hit by mechanics

After each meta, a stat breakdown pops up and shows how much you contributed in each section. The actual numerical value to gain rewards should be fair for open world difficulty, but the game should give you feedback that these things are good and to guarantee full rewards in future meta maps, you should look to optimize your build around one or some of these items.

Supporting content like dungeons which was in a unique position for veterans and newer players to mix. The difficulty here is low enough that exp players can carry with almost no effort and it offers a live gameplay environment where newer players can see the results of good play (ie. Faster smoother runs)

I dont think ow would ever be a good place for that simply because ow isnt balance with cordination in mind. Plus, i think to some extend fractals already serve that purpose.

The number balance isnt the highlight here, more so the idea of putting the stats in front of players post meta event so it draws their attention to it. You would also be measured against only 1 of the categories in this hypothetical and the bar for success would be low enough to equate to the current difficulty of open world.

But in raiding and fractals u do multiple of those things so ranking yourself is one is pretty reduntant.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

Actually it's not a blame game. There is often groups of people who play T4 fractals with "all welcome" or similar no demand heavy groups.

You are free to do the same and play with like minded people.

Others value different degrees of effort, often mirroring their own. They will provide XYZ performance and expect people they play with to do the same. Either accept other people's demands, or don't group with them. Problems only arise when different mentalities mix. Unfortunately with many people being reward driven, often the performance approach wins out. No one is stopping you though from playing how you want, simply not with not like minded people.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

Personally I feel like LFGing for a 20-25 man raid would take far too long.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

Actually it's not a blame game. There is often groups of people who play T4 fractals with "all welcome" or similar no demand heavy groups.

You are free to do the same and play with like minded people.

Others value different degrees of effort, often mirroring their own. They will provide XYZ performance and expect people they play with to do the same. Either accept other people's demands, or don't group with them. Problems only arise when different mentalities mix. Unfortunately with many people being reward driven, often the performance approach wins out. No one is stopping you though from playing how you want, simply not with not like minded people.

You're right, because now the raiding community wants people to start raiding and is willing to train people. "all welcome," usually means they have the Druid and Chrono covered, and I'm not arguing the class roles. DPS meters have made their way into T4's, which is common knowledge. If I get blamed for not doing "optimal" DPS on the underwater fractal that is the community's problem. I'm not playing this game to be optimal.

I do not limit myself to like minded people, I want to liberate the mindset of conformity and exclusivity by allowing there to be other options available. I'm playing how I want by starting a discussion on ideas that ArenaNet is actively listening to.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

Personally I feel like LFGing for a 20-25 man raid would take far too long.

So? It's a hard cap, that doesn't mean you need 20 people to finish the raid.

Do you know how many people would try it because it's new and it's not dominated by a certain group?

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

Personally I feel like LFGing for a 20-25 man raid would take far too long.

So? It's a hard cap, that doesn't mean you need 20 people to finish the raid.

Do you know how many people would try it because it's new and it's not dominated by a certain group?

Been there done that in other games, was not a fan. Organizing bigger groups is much harder.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

Personally I feel like LFGing for a 20-25 man raid would take far too long.

So? It's a hard cap, that doesn't mean you need 20 people to finish the raid.

Do you know how many people would try it because it's new and it's not dominated by a certain group?

Been there done that in other games, was not a fan. Organizing bigger groups is much harder.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

Actually it's not a blame game. There is often groups of people who play T4 fractals with "all welcome" or similar no demand heavy groups.

You are free to do the same and play with like minded people.

Others value different degrees of effort, often mirroring their own. They will provide XYZ performance and expect people they play with to do the same. Either accept other people's demands, or don't group with them. Problems only arise when different mentalities mix. Unfortunately with many people being reward driven, often the performance approach wins out. No one is stopping you though from playing how you want, simply not with not like minded people.

You're right, because now the raiding community wants people to start raiding and is willing to train people. "all welcome," usually means they have the Druid and Chrono covered, and I'm not arguing the class roles. DPS meters have made their way into T4's, which is common knowledge. If I get blamed for not doing "optimal" DPS on the underwater fractal that is the community's problem. I'm not playing this game to be optimal.

If you get blamed for not doing optimal damage in the underwater fractal (nice pick up from the general forum by the way) you are dealing with a toxic person who is clueless. Has nothing to do with the damage meter. If you do 5k damage while running T4 and everyone else does 15-20k and do not feel like they should carry you, yes they might look for some one else. Before this was the case, people simply discriminated based on class, now it is based on actual performance.

Also about the training, sorry but there has been raid training ever since there has been raids. If you want to assume otherwise that is you, but it is certainly not based in actual facts but rather biased ignorance.

@Neeman Oria.7504 said:
I do not limit myself to like minded people, I want to liberate the mindset of conformity and exclusivity by allowing there to be other options available. I'm playing how I want by starting a discussion on ideas that ArenaNet is actively listening to.

Then be ready to provide the performance or play style others are asking for. I just finished a 2h 45 minute training raid run today with 6 experienced raiders and 4 new people. Guess how many people had to bring snowcrows level of dps and were called out on it? None. Why? Because the expectations were very different and people were bringing very different expectations. Now guess how long you get to stay in a full clear squad for wings 1-6 with that performance? Not 1 second.

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

Actually it's not a blame game. There is often groups of people who play T4 fractals with "all welcome" or similar no demand heavy groups.

You are free to do the same and play with like minded people.

Others value different degrees of effort, often mirroring their own. They will provide XYZ performance and expect people they play with to do the same. Either accept other people's demands, or don't group with them. Problems only arise when different mentalities mix. Unfortunately with many people being reward driven, often the performance approach wins out. No one is stopping you though from playing how you want, simply not with not like minded people.

You're right, because now the raiding community wants people to start raiding and is willing to train people. "all welcome," usually means they have the Druid and Chrono covered, and I'm not arguing the class roles. DPS meters have made their way into T4's, which is common knowledge. If I get blamed for not doing "optimal" DPS on the underwater fractal that is the community's problem. I'm not playing this game to be optimal.

If you get blamed for not doing optimal damage in the underwater fractal (nice pick up from the general forum by the way) you are dealing with a toxic person who is clueless. Has nothing to do with the damage meter. If you do 5k damage while running T4 and everyone else does 15-20k and do not feel like they should carry you, yes they might look for some one else. Before this was the case, people simply discriminated based on class, now it is based on actual performance.

Also about the training, sorry but there has been raid training ever since there has been raids. If you want to assume otherwise that is you, but it is certainly not based in actual facts but rather biased ignorance.

@Neeman Oria.7504 said:
I do not limit myself to like minded people, I want to liberate the mindset of conformity and exclusivity by allowing there to be other options available. I'm playing how I want by starting a discussion on ideas that ArenaNet is actively listening to.

Then be ready to provide the performance or play style others are asking for. I just finished a 2h 45 minute training raid run today with 6 experienced raiders and 4 new people. Guess how many people had to bring snowcrows level of dps and were called out on it? None. Why? Because the expectations were very different and people were bringing very different expectations. Now guess how long you get to stay in a full clear squad for wings 1-6 with that performance? Not 1 second.

I can do 11k DPS just autoattacking on the golem. I know mechanics after I learn them and I clear VG with ease because it's the raid boss I've done the most. This is valuable discussion. I'm not arguing because I am not allowed in raids. I'm not arguing because I under perform.

Infact, in my raid training guild it is quite laid back. Are you against adding free content?

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

My reply was in no way directed at 20-25 man raids nor did I even mention it or quote about it.

Not sure how it is possible to make an alternative raid system/easy mode without a meta philosophy kicking in though.

As a current non raider, I am not in favour of easy mode or alternative versions of raids at this time. There are other things I'd prefer to see the devs work on given their time and resources are stretched as it is and it wouldn't really solve anything.

What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

Actually it's not a blame game. There is often groups of people who play T4 fractals with "all welcome" or similar no demand heavy groups.

You are free to do the same and play with like minded people.

Others value different degrees of effort, often mirroring their own. They will provide XYZ performance and expect people they play with to do the same. Either accept other people's demands, or don't group with them. Problems only arise when different mentalities mix. Unfortunately with many people being reward driven, often the performance approach wins out. No one is stopping you though from playing how you want, simply not with not like minded people.

You're right, because now the raiding community wants people to start raiding and is willing to train people. "all welcome," usually means they have the Druid and Chrono covered, and I'm not arguing the class roles. DPS meters have made their way into T4's, which is common knowledge. If I get blamed for not doing "optimal" DPS on the underwater fractal that is the community's problem. I'm not playing this game to be optimal.

If you get blamed for not doing optimal damage in the underwater fractal (nice pick up from the general forum by the way) you are dealing with a toxic person who is clueless. Has nothing to do with the damage meter. If you do 5k damage while running T4 and everyone else does 15-20k and do not feel like they should carry you, yes they might look for some one else. Before this was the case, people simply discriminated based on class, now it is based on actual performance.

Also about the training, sorry but there has been raid training ever since there has been raids. If you want to assume otherwise that is you, but it is certainly not based in actual facts but rather biased ignorance.

@Neeman Oria.7504 said:
I do not limit myself to like minded people, I want to liberate the mindset of conformity and exclusivity by allowing there to be other options available. I'm playing how I want by starting a discussion on ideas that ArenaNet is actively listening to.

Then be ready to provide the performance or play style others are asking for. I just finished a 2h 45 minute training raid run today with 6 experienced raiders and 4 new people. Guess how many people had to bring snowcrows level of dps and were called out on it? None. Why? Because the expectations were very different and people were bringing very different expectations. Now guess how long you get to stay in a full clear squad for wings 1-6 with that performance? Not 1 second.

I can do 11k DPS just autoattacking on the golem. I know mechanics after I learn them and I clear VG with ease because it's the raid boss I've done the most. This is valuable discussion. I'm not arguing because I am not allowed in raids. I'm not arguing because I under perform.

Infact, in my raid training guild it is quite laid back. Are you against adding free content?

@Randulf.7614 said:
What I am going to say next is genuinely not meant to be rude, patronising or disrespectful. I'm just going to preface with that just because I swear in all honesty I do not wish to offend you.

I have literally no clue what you just wrote about. At all

Basically a wall of text in a style of a church doctrine that seeks approval to an easy mode 20-25 man raid with the META painted as the greatest sinner.

Been a while and the dark side has evolved to... something.

If my thoughts were put on paper the way they were supposed to be understood, it's that I don't want to rely on a "META rotation." The META isn't the greatest sinner here, that's my point. It's the community. It's ArcDPS. It's needing to study what buttons to press in an order to achieve "Minimum 20k DPS." We play roles in this game, to enjoy, and to succeed. But as of now it's just a blame game.

This is widely discussed in threads pretty much every day. There is precisely nothing Anet or the community can or will do that will instigate any change to this ever. I hate all those things too and I've prob been guilty in the past too. No amount of discussion from us, no amount of balancing from Anet will change anything. You either accept it and become part of it, give the affected content a wide berth entirely (my current stance) or find a like minded guild/group where such things are not an issue.

... Wait... So you're saying you know making 20-25 man raids won't work? Keeping the difficulty of 10 man raids and 10 man CM, adding 20-25 man raids with different mechanics for the rest of the population, won't work? How is not being okay with the current situation, but not even having the incentive to try to have a discussion on what ideas will help the game okay to you?

My reply was in no way directed at 20-25 man raids nor did I even mention it or quote about it.

Not sure how it is possible to make an alternative raid system/easy mode without a meta philosophy kicking in though.

As a current non raider, I am not in favour of easy mode or alternative versions of raids at this time. There are other things I'd prefer to see the devs work on given their time and resources are stretched as it is and it wouldn't really solve anything.

There was a similar post, which I posted on but after 88 pages it seems to have died, haha.
I won't go as far as copy/pasting that response here, as the topics are a little different.

There are two of three topics I see of this post.
1. Who is at fault, developers or players?
2. Raids as a whole.
3. Content and meta.

I will say this outright. Developers are not to blame, entirely. The players are not to blame, entirely. The MMO genre culture is imo mostly to blame.

When developers make content, they will spend several weeks or a couple of months and a handful of teams to make it. This content will then be consumed by the player in much less time than it took to make. What this means should be simple for anyone to understand. While the developers are making the next content patch, players are already done with what was essentially just released, and asking for more.

There is a huge process to make games and if they could quickly release content--they would. This is most likely why they stopped their bi-weekly content back in season one (I can't remember if it was bi-weekly. Arena Net has gone through many different content release schedules since launch I've lost track). It is a fact that developers cannot make content faster than the player-base consumes it. This problem is only increased with how the culture of MMO communities is currently. You touched upon this in your own post, Topic Creator(TC), players skip content. If players want content so badly. Why are they skipping content? Because its not rewarding.

Escort, to most people, is not rewarding, the part from VG to Gorse, is not rewarding. Why is it not rewarding? The loot is next to nothing, is what many will say. And you're not wrong, those type of encounters in raids do not give loot worth even mentioning. The enemies themselves drop no loot (to prevent loot farming I am sure), and the encounters give what, bags of gear containing probably green and a few rare pieces of gear? That is not rewarding loot. And the encounters themselves are not engaging encounters. So within the mindset "loot = reward|Do thing-Get reward" already this is a failed method of rewarding the player. Many things come into this situation though. If the loot in X content is too consistent, others will feel forced to do said content. If every encounter gave exotic gear, everyone would be doing raids for that purpose. If WvW was the fastest way to get a legendary armor set, for example, everyone would be doing WvW for a legendary armor set even if they hate PvP content. But there is an issue with all of this. Reward doesn't need to be material gain. It is simply just ideal that what you do in the game, will yield results in the short term.

If the content and encounters for Gw2 raids were more engaging, I think players would skip it less. If players felt rewarded on a individual level the raids would be in a better spot (not a good spot, a better spot). To do that, I think the way raids are developed needs to change. Split the team up, and stop the "Arena" mechanic of boss fights. Let it take place on multiple stages in the map.

Just my two cents. I had many more ideas, but as I wrote this, like an hour ago, I forgot the things I was going to add.
Sorry for the ramble, hopefully what I said will at least spark discussion oppose to "Not another one of these threads" type situation.